Issues with Updating (Got a new external hard drive) Specifically with Ark

[eep token]

Alright friends,

I need some help here. I recently bought a 1TB external hard drive so I can put Ark onto it, as that game is 100+ gb. So I downloaded the game onto it and all, and it understandably took a while, which is fine.

After that though it needed to update (the file is 20.4 gb) and I started on that update, but for some reason my mbp/s keeps declining significantly, going away, and then spiking again. My internet is fine ( 65.1 mbps download, 5.84 mbps upload, 173 latency) so I don't suspect that it's the issue here, but it's taking hours to download this update when it used to take 30 minutes AT MOST. Anyone got anything to get my speed to stay constant? Like I said, it keeps peaking and then dropping, so it'll go from around 5mb/s to like 200 kb/s and then it'll just stop altogether and then go back to the 200 kb/s, and MAYBE work its way back up from there before dropping again.

A friend suggested that I switch download servers, I'm currently on US Denver, to see if that would help the speed, but in all honesty I didn't have this issue until I started transferring files and downloading onto this hard drive (it's a Seagate Backup Plus, 1TB) and my pc used to be real fast with this downloading business.

I'm not sure if I included everything, but that's pretty much it. If you have a solution please explain in detail and easy enough for me to understand (I'm dumb when it comes to computers), and I appreciate any help.

Thanks y'all!

[Teksura]

Your download speed with be the speed of the slowest link in the entire chain. In many cases this slowest link is your own ISP, but in some cases- especially during sales or maintence -the weak link can be the Steam servers themselves, or anything between them and you. This is why your friend suggested picking a different download server.



Since you recently bought the hard drive, I'm going to assume your hard drive is USB 3.0, which allows data transfers between 5 Gbit/s and 10Gbit/s. For comparison, that is anywhere from 10-20 times faster than you can download.


Even if your USB port itself is an older one and only supports USB 2.0, that's still capable of 480 Mbit/s. That translates to 60MB/s which is only slightly slower than what you can download.



So while it is possible that your external drive can be slowing your download, it would only drag it down to 60MB/s and that is IF you are using an older computer system. It is far more likely caused by something else, such as thousands of other people making requests from the same download server so they can download the games they just bought in the summer sale.

[The Giving One]

You need to try many regions for download, and try some very far away from you also.

And it is not recommended to instal Steam and games to external drives.

External Hard Drives

External hard drives are not recommended for use with Steam or Steam's games. Aside from many potential performance issues, external hard drives may connect or disconnect from the computer at inopportune times as part of their normal operations. If you encounter this issue with an external drive, install Steam and your games to an internal drive instead.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

It is not recommended that you install Steam to an external hard drive, due to potential performance issues.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

Storing the game folders and .acf files on externals is fine, to move internally later, but actually installed......"not recommended".

[eep token]

Originally posted by Teksura:

Your download speed with be the speed of the slowest link in the entire chain. In many cases this slowest link is your own ISP, but in some cases- especially during sales or maintence -the weak link can be the Steam servers themselves, or anything between them and you. This is why your friend suggested picking a different download server.



Since you recently bought the hard drive, I'm going to assume your hard drive is USB 3.0, which allows data transfers between 5 Gbit/s and 10Gbit/s. For comparison, that is anywhere from 10-20 times faster than you can download.


Even if your USB port itself is an older one and only supports USB 2.0, that's still capable of 480 Mbit/s. That translates to 60MB/s which is only slightly slower than what you can download.



So while it is possible that your external drive can be slowing your download, it would only drag it down to 60MB/s and that is IF you are using an older computer system. It is far more likely caused by something else, such as thousands of other people making requests from the same download server.

That actually makes sense. Thank you so much!

[eep token]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

You need to try many regions for download, and try some very far away from you also.

And it is not recommended to instal Steam and games to external drives.

External Hard Drives

External hard drives are not recommended for use with Steam or Steam's games. Aside from many potential performance issues, external hard drives may connect or disconnect from the computer at inopportune times as part of their normal operations. If you encounter this issue with an external drive, install Steam and your games to an internal drive instead.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

It is not recommended that you install Steam to an external hard drive, due to potential performance issues.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

Storing the game folders and .acf files on externals is fine, to move internally later, but actually installed......"not recommended".

The reason I'm installing is because my pc only has about 237 gb of free space, so that's why I bought the TB, because otherwise I can't update things or have more than like 3 games at a time on my pc, plus Ark hogs a TON of space. I'll keep this in mind though, thank you!

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by aureate:

The reason I'm installing is because my pc only has about 237 gb of free space, so that's why I bought the TB, because otherwise I can't update things or have more than like 3 games at a time on my pc, plus Ark hogs a TON of space. I'll keep this in mind though, thank you!

You are welcome. Just store the files on the external and keep Steam installed internally. You can move the game files and .acf files to your internal drive when you are ready to play.

You can do this to avoid the possible issues an external drive may have, keep storage low on your internal drive, and get the performance out of the internal (If SSD or faster HDD) to use with games.

A win-win. Hope that helps.

[eep token]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Originally posted by aureate:

The reason I'm installing is because my pc only has about 237 gb of free space, so that's why I bought the TB, because otherwise I can't update things or have more than like 3 games at a time on my pc, plus Ark hogs a TON of space. I'll keep this in mind though, thank you!

You are welcome. Just store the files on the external and keep Steam installed internally. You can move the game files and .acf files to your internal drive when you are ready to play.

You can do this to avoid the possible issues an external drive may have, keep storage low on your internal drive, and get the performance out of the internal (If SSD or faster HDD) to use with games.

A win-win. Hope that helps.

Sweet thank you! It helps a whole lot, thank you :)

[Teksura]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

You need to try many regions for download, and try some very far away from you also.

And it is not recommended to instal Steam and games to external drives.

External Hard Drives

External hard drives are not recommended for use with Steam or Steam's games. Aside from many potential performance issues, external hard drives may connect or disconnect from the computer at inopportune times as part of their normal operations. If you encounter this issue with an external drive, install Steam and your games to an internal drive instead.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998

It is not recommended that you install Steam to an external hard drive, due to potential performance issues.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

Storing the game folders and .acf files on externals is fine, to move internally later, but actually installed......"not recommended".

I'll expand on this a little bit.

The Giving One hinted at this a little bit by the way they say "not recommended" in quotes like that but to clarify this means that problems might potentially maybe happen and if you do this don't blame Valve because they warned you. I've been installing games on external drives for years for the same reason you have been doing so, and I have never encountered a single issue.



HOWEVER, be aware that it is "not recommended" that we do this because something might possible go wrong someday maybe and as such Valve offers no guarantee that you will have full functionality without errors.





In summmery, you CAN do it, but due to technical issues Valve offers no guarantee that you won't have a problem directly resulting from this.



The Giving One has gone over some suggestions to get the best of both worlds; however, I've never had an issue myself. But it is always a posibility.

[eep token]

Originally posted by Teksura:

Originally posted by The Giving One:

You need to try many regions for download, and try some very far away from you also.

And it is not recommended to instal Steam and games to external drives.



https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8379-RYIP-2998



https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7418-YUBN-8129

Storing the game folders and .acf files on externals is fine, to move internally later, but actually installed......"not recommended".

I'll expand on this a little bit.

The Giving One hinted at this a little bit by the way they say "not recommended" in quotes like that but to clarify this means that problems might potentially maybe happen and if you do this don't blame Valve because they warned you. I've been installing games on external drives for years for the same reason you have been doing so, and I have never encountered a single issue.



HOWEVER, be aware that it is "not recommended" that we do this because something might possible go wrong someday maybe and as such Valve offers no guarantee that you will have full functionality without errors.





In summmery, you CAN do it, but due to technical issues Valve offers no guarantee that you won't have a problem directly resulting from this.

Oh okay, thank you for that haha. I'll be sure to back everything up and all just in case, thank you! ^_^

[The Giving One]

Thanks Teksura, as your insight was spot-on. I should have clarified that some do it without problems and it works just fine, but just in case.........

Again, appreciate the clarification.

[Teksura]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Thanks Teksura, as your insight was spot-on. I should have clarified that some do it without problems and it works just fine, but just in case.........

Again, appreciate the clarification.

My pleasure.



It really comes down to a matter of "Do you want to play it safe or lazy"? If you play it safe, you have to accept that you will need to be moving files around to get optimized proformance and stability. If you play it lazy like I do you have to accept the fact that someday something might go wrong and if that happens it's entirely on you.